audentes fortuna iuvat
by a beautiful catastrophe
Summary: once upon a time, there were four children that hid behind masks of bravado. —molly, james, lily and lucy and their ever afters. / for ella (ink teardrops).


Once upon a time, there were four children that hid behind masks of bravado.

They were like songbirds, singing harmonious melodies of composed of staccatos and legatos and minors and majors to please their audience. They were like lions, trapped in the circus ring to perform perfected tricks for the crowd. They were caged.

Three of them escaped, and one of them remained, singing melodies composed staccatos and legatos and minors and majors until its voice faded away into nothingness.

.

"I can't believe it. I can't believe them." It hurts too much to say their names. Lucy runs her hands through her dirty blonde hair that hasn't been washed for days, before twirling the telephone cord around her fingers as she brings the phone closer to her ear. "I mean, for Godric's sake - they're bloody _first_ cousins."

"I know. Godric, imagine what Aunt Ginny and Uncle Harry is thinking right now. They're so selfish - they tarnished all of our reputations. I can't even bloody walk into the Common Room without someone saying 'I'm so sorry' to me." Rose responds furiously. "How's Uncle Percy reacting to it all?"

"He's so mad. He always comes back from work really late, and whenever I see him, he's always scowling." Lucy sighs. "I mean, having a fling is definitely alright, but _running away_ and_ falling in love_? Just no."

"Do you even know how many times the press has come to our door asking for details? I mean, we're not really involved with this whole thing, but they still come anyway!" Rose complains.

"Oh, we get more." Lucy assures Rose. "Every single day of the week. And late and night too! Honestly!"

"No one even knew it was going to happen. I mean, everyone knew _Molly and James_ were close, but never this close." Lucy winces as Rose says their names. It still feels like a rumour, or perhaps a dream she'll wake up from. It just doesn't seem right. How could her _sister_, her rebellious, aqua haired _sister_, run away with their _cousin_? Despite how immature and fun-loving and dangerous and _reckless_ she was, she had her limits.

"I have to go," Lucy says, but really, she doesn't. She just wants Rose to shut up and stop talking about it.

"Okay! See you then!" Rose chirps.

"See ya." Lucy says, before hanging up.

She places the phone back down on the base and sighs, before pulling her knees to her chest and wrapping her arms around them. w_hat the hell was molly thinking? why did they run away?_

James and Molly had always been friends. They were similar - together they would often sneak out during after hours, and go to a club and dance until their feet were blistered and bruised, or drink at several different bars until they got kicked out of each one.

Unlike Lucy, they could charm their way out of anything, with lies woven of velvety words, or dazzling smiles and lilting giggles and masculine laughter and turquoise hair and messy brown hair and summer days and autumn leaves and sunshine and- and-

_godric, how much i miss them. how much i miss molly&james._

She closes her eyes and lets a couple of tears trickle out.

_one for molly. _she thinks. _one for james. one for good luck. one for their safety. one for their happiness. one for a better tomorrow._

Lucy gives herself a couple of seconds of weakness, before she gets up. She walk to the kitchen and opens the cupboard where they keep all the glasses, mugs, cups and _whatever_, and stands on her tiptoes and reaches up for her glass - the glass she always used. The chipped glass with different coloured swirls that she gave to her long gone mother.

It's sitting upside down, bottom facing the roof, and- _what the hell is that?_

_dear lucy, you're better without me. james and i will be further away than you ever could imagine by the time you read this, so don't look for us. say sorry to everyone for us. -molly _it says in Molly's handwriting in her favourite aqua coloured permanent marker.

Lucy's hands start to shake, and she drops the glass, which shatters into a million shards of jaggedness.

The glass is broken, just like her.

_._

_we can run, _Molly had said to James what seemed like a couple of lifetimes ago.

_we can. _James had said back.

_then let's do it. let's run so far away no one will ever know where we went. _

_we'll run so far away and no one will ever find us so they'll just forget about us forever. that's what we both want, yeah?_

_yeah. and once we've hid ourselves for a couple of months and the mystery about where we went has died down we can tour the world. we can go to america and france and italy and australia and sweden and singapore and japan and wherever the fucking hell we want to go. we can even come back to england or whatever because no one's gonna remember us anymore._

_i'm in._

_so am i._

_i'll take as much money as i can. i'll take all that i have and more._

_so will i._

_we can start again._

_we will start again._

_i love you, molly._

_i love you too, james._

.

"Holy shit," James breathes.

"We fucking made it to America." Molly says in awe.

"We fucking did." He wraps his arms around Molly's waist and presses his lips to her temple because _holy fuck we made it to america. america, the home of the brave. the land of the free._

"I can't believe it. I can't believe we made it. Oh my Godric." Molly grins.

"I can't believe it either." James laughs.

"And we still have plenty of money to burn, too." she pulls out a wad of money from her pocket and waving it at James before slipping it back in.

James just nods.

_we made it to america we made it to america we made it to america oh my godric we made it._

_._

Molly gets a job as a model for a teenage muggle magazine, _Girlfriend_, and she loves it. She loves being in the spotlight, pouting her lips, batting her eyelashes and flashing everyone pearly white grins. It was what she was born to do, and when she was with her family she didn't get enough of limelight. Molly feels a pang of regret, but just swallows it down.

After all, she has James. The mere thought of James brings a smile to her lips.

_click._

Molly poses, waiting for the camera lights to flash.

_flash._

Ryan, Molly's boss gives an approving nod, before signalling to the cameraman to take another picture. Molly changes her pose, and positions her hand as if she's blowing a kiss.

_click._

She wonders if Dominique still reads and collects muggle fashion magazines. She wonders if Dominique has seen her in Girlfriend. She wonders if the Potter-Weasley's remember James and her anymore.

_flash._

.

James works as a barista at a popular coffee shop in the heart of New York.

The scent scent of coffee beans and frothy milk and vanilla helps him forget and move on.

But then he sees a girl with waist length red hair, or meets a boy with emerald green eyes, or takes an order from a girl that talks oh-so-wittily, or a man that bears the scars of a war that happened long before he was born or-

Then he thinks of Molly and her aqua hair and her freckles and everything is okay again.

.

Lucy will never understand how or why Lily isn't angry or upset that James and Molly left.

"I respect and understand the fact that they wanted to be free, Lucy." Lily had said to her once, and she had a sad smile on her lips.

"Don't you miss them, Lily?" Lucy had asked.

"Of course I do." Lily had said immediately. "I miss James and Molly so much. I wish James would come home all the time, but that's selfish, so I try not to."

_how is it selfish? _Lucy had thought incredulously. _is it too much to ask for my sister back?_

Lily had caught Lucy's expression, and with a sigh she had said, "They were like song birds trapped in caged with no way out. Of course, if they found a way out, they would escape, wouldn't they? And to want to keep them in the cage would be so awfully selfish and cruel. Possibly inhumane."

Lucy had nodded as if she understood, but she didn't. _how is wanting to keep my sister safe and sound cruel?_

.

The week after Lily had talked to Lucy about James and Molly, Lily runs away from home.

(Because just like James and Molly, she was a caged songbird that longed to be free.)

.

Lucy walks by a shop that has newspapers covering its display window. It's obviously closing down, soon.

Her eyes flick over a couple of lines, and she's about to walk past when something catches her eye.

_oh god, _Lucy thinks. _oh god._

**THE BOY WHO LIVED'S FAMILY HAS CRUMBLED AND FALLEN APART; EMILIA SKEETER REPORTS.**

_Harry Potter's family has crumbled and fallen apart. It started with his eldest son, James Sirius Potter, the run away teenager.  
_

_"It was bound to happen, like, sometime." said Eliza Gaulding, who was in the same year as the troubled teen. "He had major problems."_

_James Sirius ran away in late August last year, with his cousin Molly Weasley. The two of them were said to be a couple by a few anonymous sources._

_"I had no idea that they were going to run away," said Rose Weasley, first cousin of both James and Molly. "It's almost incest, for Godric's sake. You'd think they'd have at least some small shred of dignity, but they don't."_

_Albus Severus, James's younger brother, refuses to comment. What secrets could he be hiding from us all?_

_Oh, and of course, there's lovely Lily Luna, the youngest of the Potter family. Voted as Hottest New Face of Witch Weekly no more than six times, she is a star. Until she fell, that is._

_Sources tell me that she's run away — she's followed in the footsteps of her oldest brother and cousin. Rumour is that James had been waiting for Lily all this time, and Molly is simply a companion or a toy to play with. What a scandal!_

_And what about darling Albus? Oh, Albus. He's simply going insane with the news of his wrong gone siblings. Apparently, he's seeing a psychologist, perhaps Daphne Greengrass, aunt of his close friend Scorpius Malfoy. Rumour is that there's been some intense passion between Albus and Scorpius — could this be true?_

_Let's not forget about Harry and Ginny — the hero and his princess. They were lovers in paradise...until now._

_"They're filing a divorce, I hear." Marietta Edgecombe told me._

_A divorce?_

_"We are not getting a divorce." Ginny Weasley told Witch Weekly. "Harry and I have a loving relationship, and we love each other very much. We're also very proud of our children for being so independent, no matter where they are or what they do. We're confident that they are all stable financially and emotionally, and I love them all so much."_

_The first step is always denial, dear readers. T__here must be some fishy business going on. Why would two out of three children leave the Potters's home, if they were content with the life they were living? Why would they_

There's a rip that tears off anything that came after.

She wants to scream her head off at Emilia Skeeter. And slap her, and kick her until she's bloody and bruised. Lucy wants to _ruin_ her.

.

That night, Molly and James are one.

"Are you ready?" he asks huskily, his breathing ragged.

"I am," she whispers, "I am."

And in that moment, they lose themselves in each other. They are no longer Molly or James, but they are two broken teenagers seeking their own Elysium.

.

Lily is finally free.

From expectations, reputations, nicknames and everything.

She is no longer Lily, the rebellious girl who smoked cigarettes and told lies. She is no longer Lily, the shooting star, Lily the reject, or Lily the daughter of a war hero. She is simply a pretty girl walking through unfamiliar streets finding a tomorrow to remake herself.

A boy approaches her from the other side of the road.

"Lost?" he asks in a not-quite-_almost_-Scottish accent. The air is so cold, that when he talks, clouds of smoke appear around him.

"I suppose you could call it that. I'd call it wandering, though. Searching, perhaps." She muses.

"You're British." he says with a smile.

"And you're Scottish." Lily smiles back.

"Irish, actually. Patrick." he says, holding out his hand.

"Lily." she says, taking it in her own.

.

Once upon a time there were four teenagers that wanted to be themselves.

Three of them ran away and one of them remained, smiling and pretending until her vision became so blurry that she couldn't differentiate between fakes smiles and real smiles and lost herself to someone else.

.

_audentes fortuna iuvat._

.

**fin.**

* * *

**author's note: **this is for the ever-so-perf elzy (ink teardrops) who is amazing in every single way possible. i hope you like it, although this wasn't what i originally planned this to be - it was supposed to be some grand molly and lucy fanfiction that revolved around their pain, but then james decided to climb aboard the ship and i figured if james was there, then lily would have to be there too.

_audentes fortuna iuvat_ means fortune favours the brave. i thought it was fitting, as molly and james and lily all ended up happily ever after whereas lucy didn't.

please leave a review. reviews mean the world to me.


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